Barten Family Pumpkins

NOTE:  This blog is part of the "1980 Buick LeSabre Road Trip - October 2011 Series".  Branelle and I flew up to Minnesota and drove back to Texas in her grandmothers 1980 LeSabre, a gift from her parents and Nana.  We took about a week getting back because, as I reminded Nel on a number of occasions, "sometimes it's about the journey, not the destination".

Barten Family Pumpkins

www.bartenpumpkins.com

Hanging out in my first pumpkin patch with Nel.

The first leg of our trip took us from Brainerd, MN, south to the little town of New Prague, just outside of Minneapolis.  Nel's entire family was heading there for the baptism of Nel's nephew Paul.  Nel's sister-in-law Gina, and her entire family, are from New Prague and still own and operate a family farm there.  The primary crop seems to be pumpkins, and each fall they open their 'pumpkin patch' to everyone through the entire month of October.  The Saturday we arrived in New Prague they were hosting one of their "Family Fun Days" with pony rides (too small for me I was told), hay rides, face painting and caricatures, and more.  When we arrived, the traffic directors (dressed in orange - all family members) guided us to a parking lot.  There were hundreds of people there enjoying the afternoon and festivities.

I was hoping to use my family connections to score a primo parking spot for my new ride, but was ushered to the "public" lot instead.

I had never been to a legit pumpkin patch before.  It was interesting.  The pumpkins were arranged to a degree by size and there was an honor system for paying - very cool - so when no one is around on the less crowded days you could just walk up, pick your pumpkins, put your money in the box, and go.  I really didn't want to buy any pumpkins to lug back to Texas, but Nel insisted on grabbing a couple of very little ones.  They actually call the small one's "pie pumpkins" - apparently they're better for cooking. 

Guarding the Twinkie's pumpkins.

We hung around and visited with Gina's family as well as little Paul and even took a hay ride out into the actual 'patch'.  All in all it was a really neat day.  One of the more interesting things I got to do was walk on simple wooden stilts.  I've never even seen these things before, but I understand that they were common up north for kids growing up. 

Stilts - Surprisingly entertaining!

Enjoying the shade - it was surprisingly warm for Minnesota in October.

I believe it was Beulah Buick's (that's what we took to calling her) first trip to a pumpkin patch as well.

Pumpkin = $5 - Ari = free.  It's OK, we have another one.

We headed out to the home of one of Gina's sisters (or brothers - I'm not sure to be honest) for a BBQ that night.  It was very nice of them to include us in their family events for the weekend.  After dinner we headed to our hotel in the equally small town of Belle Plaine (both the hotels in New Prague were full - wedding) just up the road.  The next morning we headed to a small Catholic church in New Prague for the baptism.  I'm never really 100% sure what to do in Catholic services.  I feel a little lost to be honest - kind of like I'm the only one who doesn't know what to do and when to do it.  I usually just try to mirror the members with as little delay as possible.  It was a very nice service and the baptism was equally nice.  Paul, to his credit, handled it well.  Branelle is the Godmother and she also handled her duties without issue. 

Baptism.

After the service we were graciously invited back to the farm for brunch before hitting the road.  We had a not particularly ambitious goal of Des Moines that evening, which was only about 230 miles, and the old Buick made it without any issues at all. 

Made it to Iowa - outside the Visitor's Center.